A Super Bowl and a big headache

With some 260 million eyes to be trained on today’s Super Bowl, this seems like a timely offering for the evening after. Tommy Mallon, a former three-sport star athlete at Santa Fe Christian High, will be back at his alma mater Monday night. But not to celebrate his victories. Mallon, whose prep career ended in 2009, will share his story with current student athletes as part of a free presentation led by doctors from Scripps Memorial Hospital Encinitas. During his high school years, Mallon suffered a fractured neck and three concussions in three different sports — football, basketball and lacrosse — which led to the establishment of his family’s Advocates for Injured Athletes organization (injuredathletes.org).

Nuff said: Dave Nuffer, the iconic San Diego public relations man who died Thursday at 78, lived long and well enough to fill a book of obituaries. But Nuffer always preferred to talk about others. And for others. That was his job, and he did it as well as anyone. Still, he left room for a host of hobbies. One of his favorites was collecting “Colemanisms” — those wildly funny malaprops that have peppered legendary Padres broadcaster Jerry Coleman’s play-by-play for decades. Nuffer never published his promised anthology of Colemanisms, but he delighted friends and colleagues over the years with annual collections. Among Nuffer’s favorites: “There’s Rollie Fingers, throwing up in the bullpen.” “When you don’t hit it, nothing happens.” “If he can catch it, he can reach it.” “He got it before it got there.” “You don’t win when they beat you.” “The dress code in Pittsburgh today is anything that covers anything you don’t need to leave covered.” And, my personal favorite, “Winfield goes back to the right field wall. He hits his head. It’s rolling toward the infield!” Thanks for sharing, Nuff.

Life in the city: In an industry that chews up and spits out broadcasters, Bill Griffith sticks to the ribs. On Monday, he’ll celebrate 35 years in local television; all of them at one station, Channel 10. … For Gregory Porter, it’s a perfect homecoming. A defensive end two decades ago for SDSU’s Aztecs, he dreamed of a football career. Injuries killed that dream, but led to another. Now a red-hot, Grammy-nominated jazz singer who made his mark in New York, he’ll return to San Diego Feb. 9 in concert at Anthology nightclub in Little Italy. … Inflationary: A few weeks ago, with the Aztecs basketball team ranked sixth in the nation, $20 game tickets for its sold-out season were going for $90 on eBay. This weekend, with the Aztecs ranked fourth, a pair of tickets for their rematch with BYU was listed for $250.

Flashback: With admirers celebrating today on the 100th anniversary of President Ronald Reagan’s birth, veteran newsman Reid Carroll recalls a first encounter with gubernatorial candidate Reagan back in the 1960s. Before a fundraiser at the Hotel del Coronado, their interview turned to the planned San Diego-Coronado Bridge, a pet project of then-Gov. Pat Brown, which Reagan strongly opposed. The irony, says Carroll, was that traffic from San Diego to Reagan’s Coronado fundraiser by ferryboat was choked off for more than an hour, while Reagan’s fundraiser was held hostage by Navy ships moving through the channel. Determined Reagan fans finally managed to get to the event by the only other route: the long and circular approach south to Imperial Beach and back north on the Silver Strand.